The act of March 1, 1889, establishing a Census Office
in the Department of the Interior, provided that the Superintendent of
Census in taking the Eleventh Census, should "cause to be taken on a special
schedule of inquiry, according to such form as he may prescribe, the names,
organizations, and length of service of those who had served in the Army,
Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States in the war of the rebellion,
and who are survivors at the time of said inquiry, and the widows of soldiers,
sailors, or marines..." The act also provided that there be prepared
and published, in connection with the census, "a list of the names, organizations,
and length of service of surviving soldiers, sailors and marines, and the
widows of soldiers, sailors, and marines."

Because of the difficulties in securing data concerning
the veterans or their survivors that the regular and special enumerators
were expected to encounter, the Census Office secured all possible information
in advance of the enumeration. A preliminary list of the names of
458, 677 surviving veterans was compiled from the records of the Pension
Office; efforts were made to obtain rosters of all Grand Army of
the Republic posts throughout the country; and requests were made
for State rosters, adjuntant general's reports, and other publications
likely to be of value in the work of verifying the special schedules.

The work of the enumerators, which was begun on the
first Monday of June 1890, was completed by July 1 of that year.
The work examining, verifying, and classifying the information on the special
schedules was carried on from August 1, 1890, to June 30, 1891. During
this period many thousands of letters were written to veterans to obtain
information not obtained by the enumerators, and inquiries were published
in about 500 newspapers throughout the country in order to elicit responses
from veterans overlooked in the enumeration. An examination of the
special schedules indicates that that at least part of the data so obtained
was added to the schedules by the Census Office.

Each special schedule, consisting of four pages, contains
spaces for fifty entries. On the upper half of each page are included
the name of the veteran (or if he died not survive, the names of both the
widow and her deceased husband), the veterans rank, company, regiment or
vessel, date of enlistment, date of discharge, and length of service in
years, months and days. The lower half of each page contains the
Post Office address of each person listed, disability incurred by the veteran,
and under the heading "general remarks," other information necessary for
a complete statement of the veteran's term of service. Persons who
enlisted and served under assumed names, and afterward assumed their lawful
names, are listed under their real name followed by their aliases.
In a few cases names of Confederate veterans were reported inadvertently.